• Core curriculum requirements:
  • Writing in the major
  • Capstone in the major

• This writing-intensive course views “writing as a mode of learning”
  • employs writing assignments as ways of helping students learn the material rather than as vehicles for regurgitating material.

• A major instructional focus is on the writing process through detailed evaluation, feedback, and revision opportunities
  • highlights multiple stages of the writing process
  • e.g., idea formulation, refinement of argument/hypothesis, structuring/outlining, drafting, revising

• Students should write no fewer than 30 pages
  • includes all pages in all stages of the writing process (i.e., drafts, early versions, outlines, revisions).

• BIOL 425 addresses the learning outcomes of oral communication, written communication, lifelong learning, ethical practices and ethical reasoning, and experiential learning.
  • meets Core Curriculum requirements for Writing in the Major and Integrative Learning + prepares students to describe, explain, and communicate about natural phenomena

• Prepare a research paper detailing their research experiences.
  • encompass several drafts and revisions with the guidance of their research mentor
  • final draft is typically 15-65 pages

• Present research in an oral forum to the biology faculty and others in the University science community with the use of appropriate visual aids, conduct themselves professionally, and field questions from the attendees.

• Data-driven scientific paper
  • own scientific research
  • open-source data (new option)

• Narrative literature synthesis

• Literature meta-analysis

• Based on research you have performed yourself (at Shepherd or elsewhere)
  

or

• A question you address using publicly available (non-published) data

• Based on an extensive review of the primary literature around a given topic or question
  • Researcher reviews results of many studies
  • Research and makes judgments about the connections between variables
  • Evaluate, analyze, compare and contrast these studies focusing on your central question—reveal strengths, biases, weaknesses
  • The goal is to present the primary papers in a new light or tie them together in a new way

• Contains representative figures, summary data tables, and/or informational figures

• Similar to a journal review article with this format: Abstract, Introduction, Body with subheadings (each section examines a different aspect of your topic/question), Discussion/Conclusion, Literature Cited

Douglas RM, Hemila H, D’Souza R, et al. Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2004;4:CD000980.

“The lack of effect of prophylactic vitamin C supplementation on the incidence of common cold in normal populations throws doubt on the utility of this wide practice.”

Mycorrhizal association as a primary control of the CO₂ fertilization effect (Science 2016)

Ecosystem responses to elevated CO₂ governed by plant–soil interactions and the cost of nitrogen acquisition (New Phytologist 2018)

Nitrogen and phosphorus constrain the CO₂ fertilization of global plant biomass (Nature Climate Change 2019)

A trade-off between plant and soil carbon storage under elevated CO₂ (Nature 2021)

• Papers will be reviewed as complete drafts being submitted for peer review at a journal
  • However, the paper is the work of the student and not a professional

• Papers must contain every sections appropriate to that type of paper.

• The text will be reviewed for scientific content:
  • Sufficient detail that a reviewer can understand the project’s rationale and conclusions without being an expert.

• The text will be evaluated for quality of writing, including sentence structure, word usage, grammar spelling, and other writing mechanics.

• Papers will also be reviewed for technical elements such as appropriate use of references and citations, figure legends, reference citations, and appropriate figure legends.

Rough and final drafts of your capstone paper will be evaluated according to a rubric on Brightspace

• New workshop based on Open Science
  • potential to use open source (unpublished) data to design an original Capstone project
    • Huge brownie points from Dr. C
  • potential to utilize open source (published) data as part of a literature synthesis or meta-analysis

• Friday: First Writing Session. Let’s get organized and brainstorm.
  • You should walk away with one or several ideas for your capstone

• Pull out the answers to your questions from lecture 1….anything new to jot down!?!?

• Some previous Capstone topic titles are on Brightspace